


For One More Smile

by BreTheWriter



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Star Trek: Into Darkness Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 10:29:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BreTheWriter/pseuds/BreTheWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Leonard McCoy can't help but feel as though he let his captain down by not being there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For One More Smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ricechex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ricechex/gifts).



Dr. Leonard McCoy checked the vital signs displayed on the medscreen, adjusting the blanket over Captain James Kirk as he did so. Everything was holding fairly steady, but Jim was still in a coma. Logically, Leo knew it would take more than a day or two for him to recover--his cells had been heavily irradiated, after all. And, really, the fact that he had any vital signs at all was nothing short of a miracle. But Leo had secretly hoped that the serum he had devised from Khan's "super-blood" would provide a more dramatic cure. 

And he still felt guilty. 

_I should have been there,_ he thought, watching the screen. It was a thought that had been with him more or less constantly for the last forty-eight hours, ever since they had dropped out of warp far further from the Klingon homeworld than was optimal. He was usually the one to back Jim up. Just a few days before-- _had_ it only been a few days?--they had run through the jungle of Nibiru together, trying to distract a primitive population so that Spock could stop a volcano from exploding. 

_I hate this!_ he had shouted at Jim. But despite Jim's response of _I know you do,_ both of them were aware that he could no more have refused Jim's request than he could have refused to take his next breath. It wasn't just that he kind of enjoyed the adventure, enjoyed being useful even though he was one of the three oldest men on the ship. It wasn't even that he was willing to look for any excuse, any excuse at all, to avoid Spock, whom he still hadn't forgiven for a lot of things. It was Jim. Always Jim. He had to protect him, had to help him at all costs. 

But the entire time they had looked for Khan, Jim had either worked on his own, or taken Spock and Uhura. Bones had had to stay on the Enterprise. When Jim had enlisted Khan's help to go over to the Vengeance and infiltrate it from within, Leo had pulled him aside on the pretext of giving him a medical check. 

_"Jim, what the hell are you doing?" he hissed, low enough that even Khan's keen ears couldn't catch the words._

_"Saving the ship, Bones," Jim replied softly._

_"With that snake's help? I wouldn't trust him to hold my ice-cream cone." _

_"I don't have a choice," Jim insisted. "He knows the Vengeance. And I'll have Scotty backing me up."_

_Leo gritted his teeth at the mention of the man's name. "He quit on you." _

_"I did kind of drive him to it. And he was right about the torpedoes." _

_"That doesn't--ugh, fine." Leo threw up his hands in exasperation, then glanced over his shoulder before turning back to Jim. "If you're going over there--"_

_"No!" Jim said immediately, in a voice that made everyone nearby glance at them. He dropped his voice back to the undertone they'd been using before. " No, Bones, I won't allow it. You're not going with me. I need you here." _

_"If you get hurt, I should be there!" Leo protested._

_"Bones." Jim glanced over to make sure no one was watching, then put his hands on Leo's chest lightly. The two men were almost the same height, so he didn't have to reach very high. "I might be coming back in a hurry with casualties. I don't know what kind of shape Carol or Admiral Marcus will be in. Or, for that matter, what kind of shape I'll be in. The crew of that ship isn't exactly going to roll over and let me waltz up there." He took a step closer and dropped his voice even more. "Besides, you're an astrophobe. We don't have enough power for the transporter. Spock is gonna have to more or less point us at the Vengeance and launch us towards it. You couldn't handle that." _

_"I could," Leo said stubbornly._

_"Even if that was true, I still wouldn't let you go," Jim snapped. "There's a hell of a lot of debris between the two ships. I won't risk your life. I can't. That debris field is dangerous, and being on the ship even more so. I won't be able to make it if I don't know you're here, and safe." He looked up, his eyes revealing an emotion that Jim never showed to anyone but Leo--fear. "Please, Bones. For me." _

And he'd agreed, damned fool that he was, because he could never say no to Jim when he looked like a scared puppy. He had been so afraid that he'd actually asked _Spock_ for reassurance that this would work. They hadn't known then that Khan had his own agenda, but Leo still hadn't trusted him. It was partly the way he had sat there so calmly and dispassionately, partly the way he had deliberately tried to get a rise out of Jim while Leo was trying to get a blood sample, but it was mostly because they were going into a dangerous situation. Jim could take care of himself, usually, and when he couldn't Leo was usually there to back him up. But in this case, Jim's safety was not wholly in his own hands. He was working as part of a team with Khan and Scotty, and Leo hated having to trust someone else with Jim's life. Especially someone like Khan, whose motives he couldn't discern...or someone like Scotty, who'd already let him down once. 

Leo remembered the helplessness he had felt when Khan had hailed the Enterprise, holding Jim hostage, and demanded his crew in return for Jim's safety. If Spock had not foreseen that eventuality and had Leo remove the cryo-tubes from the torpedoes before arming them, they would probably all have been dead, and Leo would have been forced to watch Jim's final moments over the comm screen. They had been extremely lucky and Leo knew it. 

He could have cried with relief when Jim and Scotty ran into Medbay, half-carrying Carol Marcus with her badly injured leg. Of course Jim had been in need of medical attention, too, but Leo hadn't had time to do much more than check him over and convey silently how thankful he was to see him before he and Scotty had run off to Engineering. The ship had been in serious trouble. Leo would have gone with them, but he had patients to care for in Medbay, and he had convinced himself that everything would be fine--that once the ship was stabilized, Jim would come back to get those injuries tended to. 

He'd been a fool. 

"I should have been there," he said again in a low voice, staring at Jim's pale, immobile face. 

"Illogical, as there is nothing you could have done." 

Leo bit back a snarl. "Spock, what are you doing here?" 

He heard footsteps as Spock drew closer. "I came to see if the captain had awakened yet," he said in the calm, measured tones that made Leo want to hit him. "I could not help overhearing your comment, and I surmise that, as you directed it at the captain, you were referring to the moment of his death." 

"How clever of you," Leo said sarcastically, feeling his stomach twist at the word _death_. Well, it was true. Jim had died after climbing the warp core. Only luck, Leo's fascination with Khan's regenerative powers, and a well-timed uppercut had saved him thus far. But it would be touch and go whether or not he would survive further, or be left hopelessly crippled. 

"Dr. McCoy, there is nothing more you could have done than you have," Spock repeated. "The captain was dead before the door of the decontamination chamber could be opened." 

Leo gritted his teeth. "Have you got an imagination, Mr. Spock?" 

"I am capable of envisioning potential scenarios in my head, if that is to what you refer." 

"Yeah? Well, envision this," Leo said, turning to face the Enterprise's first officer, whose face was its usual placid mask--very similar to Khan's default expression, or lack thereof. "If Lieutenant Uhura had been the one climbing the warp core--if she were the one lying at the foot of that shaft, fighting for every breath, already weakened from two fights in the span of less than twelve hours, and slowly dying of radiation poisoning--wouldn't you have wanted to be there? Even if there was nothing you could do to save her." Tears sprang to his eyes as he spoke. 

Spock's face changed. All at once, he was displaying more emotion than Leo had ever seen him display, barring once. "Yes," he said softly. "And I believe she would have wanted me to be there as well." He cleared his throat. "I am sorry, Doctor. I had no idea that you and Captain Kirk had a relationship of that nature." 

"Yeah, well, we don't exactly advertise," Leo muttered, turning to adjust the flow of the intravenous drip into Jim's arm. "Fuckin' Starfleet regulations on fraternization an' all that." As often happened when he was agitated, his Southern accent was broadening. 

Spock was silent for a moment, watching as Leo swapped out the empty vial of the serum with a fresh one. Finally, he said, "I was preparing to tender disbelief of that statement. After all, James Kirk has shown frequently that he holds little regard for Starfleet regulations of any kind. As Captain Pike once said, he believes rules are for other people." He studied Leo. "But I realise that this is a different situation. It would not only be himself facing punishment, but you as well. And he proved when he stood up to Admiral Marcus that he would do anything to protect his crew. You in particular, I suspect." 

Leo looked up in surprise as Spock continued. "I know it may not be adequate, but I am sorry, Doctor. I should have commed you to Engineering sooner, and I would have if I had both known the depth of your feelings for one another...and not been unable to check my own feelings." He tilted his head to one side. "I must say, however, that certain things make more sense now. And I now understand the significance of his actions right before the moment of his passing." 

Leo felt as though his insides had been flash-frozen. He usually avoided Spock--Jim had forgiven him for a lot, and even considered him a friend, but Leo was stubborn and tended to hold grudges, even ones that weren't his to hold. But Spock had done a lot towards saving Jim's life by beating Khan into submission, something no one else could have done. And the fact remained that Spock had been present for what could have been Jim's final moments. He held knowledge that Leo needed. 

"Spock," he said slowly, leaning on the rail of Jim's bio-bed for support. "What...what did he say?" 

Spock looked at him steadily. "Will it do you any good to know?" 

"I don't know," Leo said honestly. "But I have to know. Just...just in case he doesn't make it." His voice shook a little. " _Please,_ Spock." 

Spock seemed to think on that for a moment. Finally, he spoke. "Our conversation was briefer than I would have wished. Once he became aware of my presence, he commented that I had used Khan's desire against him, and complimented me. I replied that it is what he would have done. He then said that I would have done what he did. I was unable to answer." 

Leo remembered that Spock had made contact with New Vulcan before implementing his plan. What had the Ambassador said about his own encounter with Khan? Surely there had been one. 

Spock continued. "He told me...that he was scared. He asked me to help him not to be, and how I managed to choose not to feel." To Leo's surprise, the half-Vulcan's voice trembled. "I had to tell him that I did not know, as at that moment I was failing." His eyes unfocused, as though he was seeing Jim's final moments once more. "He said that he wanted to tell me why he saved my life on Nibiru. I knew the answer, and said so--because he is my friend. He pressed his hand to the door against mine. His eyes slid to one side, as though he was seeing something behind me." Spock focused on Leo intently. "He then...I assumed at the time that he was merely struggling for his final breaths, but knowing what I do now, in retrospect, I believe he may have been attempting to call for you. Certainly it sounded like he said the first part of the nickname he has given you. His hand slid off the glass, and...he died." 

Leo couldn't handle it. He sank into the chair beside Jim's bio-bed, buried his face in his folded arms, and let himself cry as he hadn't done in years. Jim had been scared and hurting. He'd known he was dying, had probably been in excruciating pain. He had even tried to call for his lover with his final breath. And Leo hadn't been there. 

He felt a gentle pressure on his shoulder. Lifting his head slightly, he realised that Spock had rested a hand there in a comforting gesture. "You saved him, Doctor," Spock said, his voice still soft and a little shaky. "No one else could have done what you did. You brought him back to life." 

"I should have been there to stop it in the first place," Leo said brokenly. "I know it's not rational, but dammit, Spock, I should have been there to protect him." 

"You may not believe it of me, but I do understand your feelings. When my planet was destroyed, even though I knew, logically, that I had done all I could...a part of me still felt that I could have done more." 

Leo looked up at Spock. For the first time, he saw the man the way Jim did--the way Nyota did. He'd always thought of him as half-Vulcan, but he had neglected to think of the other half, the human half. Spock's parents had raised him on Vulcan. He had grown up around Vulcans. It had never occurred to Leo that, had he grown up around his mother's people instead, he might have turned out differently. 

"I don't know if I said thank you," he said quietly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "For capturing Khan, I mean. No one else could have stood up to him for that long, or knocked him out." 

Spock shook his head. "Your thanks are not necessary, Doctor. If anyone, it is Lieutenant Uhura you have to thank. Had she not arrived when she did and stopped me, I would have killed him." 

"And I repeat, no one else could have done that. Even Jim couldn't have gone more than a couple rounds with him, and you've seen the way that boy can fight." Leo brushed Jim's hair back from his forehead tenderly. 

"He beat _me_ in hand-to-hand combat," Spock pointed out. 

Leo managed a small smile. "He took you by surprise. And you were in the grip of an emotional rage. He had calculated that entire encounter." 

"True." Spock looked down at Jim's face. "Tell me the truth, Doctor. What is his prognosis?" 

Leo's hand stilled in Jim's hair for a moment, then withdrew slowly. He squared his shoulders and looked at Spock steadily. "He will recover," he said with certainty, even though he knew there was a chance he wouldn't. "The longer he's in the coma, the more chance his body will have to heal before he wakes up and starts abusing it again. He may not be exactly the way he was, but he _will_ recover. And by the time the Enterprise is ready for re-christening, he'll be ready to take up the captain's chair again." 

Spock returned Leo's gaze for a long moment. At last, he said softly, "You know, Doctor, I envy you." 

Leo was surprised. "What?" 

Spock turned his eyes onto the screen displaying Jim's vitals. "I know that it is commonly held among humans that Vulcans do not have emotions, that my occasional outbursts are a result of the human side of me. In fact, it is not true. Vulcans do experience emotion, unless they have undergone _Kolinahr_ \--we simply learn to repress it. However, there is one thing I have found humans are capable of experiencing that Vulcans are not." He turned to look at Leo again. "Faith. Belief without proof." 

"'The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen,'" Leo quoted, remembering the phrase from his childhood. He wasn't a particularly religious man, but his grandmother had brought him to church every Sunday, and some things stuck with you. 

"Precisely," Spock said with a nod. "When you asked me the other day to tell you that the captain's idea would work, I was forced to tell you that I had neither the corroboration nor the confidence to do so. Had I asked you the same question, I believe that you would have assured me that it would, despite having no evidence." 

"Of course. I wanted it to be true." 

"And subsequent events bore you out. But your belief would have been groundless at the time. It is that for which I envy you." Spock's eyes dropped to Jim's face. "I feel that if I were to press you further on his prognosis, you would either admit that you have no concrete evidence of what you said, or remain silent. But I will not do so. Because your words have given me hope." He looked up at Leo again. "I cannot choose to have faith, Doctor, and so will not ask for evidence. But I can choose to believe that you have evidence, and therefore I can choose to believe your assessment of his chances. He will recover." 

Leo felt a lump in his throat. "Of course he will." 

* * *

He had occasion to doubt those words a number of times over the next two weeks. But finally, as he was preparing the fifteenth vial of serum, he heard Jim give a huge, sucking breath. Whirling quickly, Leo was just in time to see Jim's brilliant blue eyes snap open and look around him with a mixture of curiosity and fear. 

"Don't be so melodramatic," Leo scolded, but his voice was soft, and the affectionate smile on his face belied his words. He felt like crying with relief. "You were barely dead. It was the transfusion that really took its toll. You've been in a coma for two weeks," he added, because he knew Jim's next question would be how long he had been out. 

"Transfusion?" Jim murmured, looking at Leo with a flicker of concern. 

"Your cells were heavily irradiated," Leo said. "We had no choice." 

"Khan?" 

Leo was a little concerned that Jim was only speaking in one-word sentences, but he reminded himself that the man _had_ just come out of a coma. "We synthesized a serum from his...'super blood.'" He tried to lighten his tone. "Tell me, are you feeling homicidal, power-mad, despotic?" 

Jim managed a slight smile. "No more than usual." 

Leo smiled back, not the least because Jim had managed four words. 

Spock appeared about then, and Leo directed Jim's focus to him. Of course, Jim being Jim, he thanked Spock for saving his life. Spock surprised Leo by addressing Jim by name, rather than as "captain." 

After a few minutes, Spock glanced at Jim's vitals, then turned to include Leo in his gaze. "I shall leave you to rest and complete your recovery," he said. "Doctor, with your permission, I will let the remainder of the crew know that the captain has awoken." 

Leo cursed inwardly. He'd forgotten about the rest of the crew. "Thanks, Spock. Tell 'em they can come see him tomorrow at the earliest. He still needs more rest." 

"Don't I get any say in this?" Jim said weakly. 

"Why, do you want to wait longer?" Leo asked, glancing at him with a raised eyebrow. 

Jim grimaced. "Tomorrow's fine." 

Spock actually smiled. "Goodnight, Captain." He inclined his head towards Leo. "Goodnight, Doctor." 

"'Night, Mr. Spock," Leo replied. 

Jim looked up at Leo as the door slid shut behind Spock. "You saved me." 

Leo rested a hand on Jim's forehead lightly. "Of course I did, you idiot," he replied, a little gruffly. "Ain't no one gonna kill you but me." 

"You've gotta admit...I was right not to take you over there," Jim said, his blue eyes boring into Bones. "To the Vengeance, I mean." 

"I admit no such thing," Leo said. "I still say I could have helped." 

"Bones." Jim lifted a hand and gripped Leo's wrist lightly. "You'd have been more help to me there than anyone else. But that wasn't half so important to me as knowing you were safe." 

"Safe?" Leo raised an eyebrow, even as he worked his hand around to lace his fingers through Jim's. "With Khan at the console of a dreadnaught-class starship with more weaponry than a small third-world country that was designed so that _one_ person could control it if necessary? On a ship with a damaged warp core and three percent shield capacity?" 

"And Spock in the captain's chair," Jim said quietly. "Bones, I didn't leave him in charge just because he's my first officer. I left him in charge because, out of all the people in the damned _universe_ , he is the _only_ one I would trust with your safety. Not the ship's. Not the rest of the crew's. _Yours._ If anyone could have gotten the Enterprise out of that mess, it was Spock. I didn't know how bad the warp core was damaged." 

"Neither did I. Neither did anyone, I guess." Leo shook his head. "You saved us, Jimmy. You saved us all." 

Jim smiled faintly. "Of course I did, you idiot." 

"That's right, throw my words back at me." But Leo grinned. It faded quickly, however. "Spock told me what you said. In that decontamination chamber." 

Jim's smile vanished. "Bones..." 

Leo used his free hand to cup Jim's cheek tenderly. "Dammit, Jim, I should have been there." 

"I almost begged Scotty to call you," Jim admitted. "When I...I realized I was dying. I was scared and I wanted you. But...but I couldn't do that to you." 

"Jim..." 

"No, listen," Jim insisted. "You couldn't have opened that door. The lock wouldn't open until the decontamination process was complete, and by then it was too late for me. You'd have had to watch, and I wouldn't have done that to you for the world. Then...it would have made it that much worse for me." Tears sprang to his eyes. "I already knew I was dying. Knowing that you were there, and that you couldn't even hold my hand, would have made it unbearable." 

"You tried to call for me," Leo said roughly, feeling tears in his own eyes. "Didn't you?" 

"Yeah," Jim whispered. "At the very end. I didn't want you to watch me suffer, I didn't wanna hurt you, but...but right at the end, I wanted you there, even if it was selfish." The tears rolled down his cheeks. "I'm sorry." 

"No, Jim, you've got nothing to be sorry for." Leo squeezed Jim's hand a little tighter. "I probably would have done the same thing." 

"If you ever put me in that kind of situation--" Jim began, starting to sit up. 

"Whoa," Leo said warningly. He let go of Jim's face and pressed his now-free hand to Jim's chest, pushing him back against the bed. "Don't worry. I'm not a hero like you, Jim. Not like I'm gonna be dying by inches of radiation poisoning after a stunt like that." 

"No, but you're a stubborn cuss," Jim said. "You won't admit when you've pushed yourself beyond your limits. Remember when you came down with the Martian 'flu? You were sick for, what, three weeks before you were finally too weak to resist me dragging your ass to sickbay? At least that was curable." His eyes searched every inch of Leo's face. "Promise me, Bones. Promise me if you start getting sick, even if it's just the goddamned sniffles, you'll treat it right away. You won't blow it off." 

Leo didn't need to look at the diagnostic equipment to know that Jim's heartbeat was quickening, even as the blood drained from his face. And he knew Jim was right. He did tend to blow off his own symptoms as nothing, to put off attending to himself until it reached a crisis point. He always had. 

"Jim," he said quietly, "for probably the first time in my life, I've got something to live for. I promise, I'll get treatment the second anything feels off." 

Jim relaxed visibly, smiling up at Bones. "Thanks," he whispered. 

Leo used the ball of his thumb to wipe the tears off of Jim's face. "Get some sleep, darlin'," he said. "I wasn't just blowin' smoke when I told Spock you needed to rest." 

"Don't leave me," Jim begged, a flash of fear in his eyes. 

"Never, Jimmy," Leo promised. He bent over and kissed Jim's forehead tenderly. "I'll be right here."


End file.
